Euripides
u-rlp'l-dez (480-406 B. C.), a celebrated tragic poet of Athens. According to popular tradition, he was born on the day of the defeat of the fleet of Xerxes. His birthplace was the island of Salamis to which his parents had fled for refuge from the burning city. His rivals for honors at the hands of the Athenian people were Sophocles and Aeschylus, both of whom are ranked above him by modern critics. He wrote seventy-five plays, of which eighteen are extant. His subjects were drawn chiefly from Grecian mythology. The most celebrated are perhaps the Alcestis, Medea, Andromache, Iphigenia at Aulis, Electra, Orestes, and Cyclops. See Aeschylus; Sophocles; Drama
SAYINGS OF EURIPIDES.
Second thoughts are ever wiser.
Leave no stone unturned.
Toil is the sire of fame.
A bad beginning makes a bad ending.
Waste not fresh tears over old griefs.
Man's best possession is a sympathetic wife.
The gods visit the sins of the fathers upon the children.
The gifts of a bad man bring no good with them.
My tongue took an oath, but my mind is un-sworn.
SAID OF EURIPIDES.
Euripides stands pre-eminent in true natural expression of the passions in interesting situations, original groupings of character, and varied knowledge of human nature.--Americana.
With his droppings of warm tears,
And his touches of things common,
Till they rose to touch the spheres.
--Browning.